Sri Lanka’s prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe takes on crucial finance ministry portfolio

Sri Lanka’s prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe takes on crucial finance ministry portfolio

Colombo: Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will hold dual charge as finance minister, the president’s office announced on Wednesday, and will lead talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as the crisis-hit nation seeks a bailout. “Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as finance, economic stabilisation and national policies minister before President Gotabaya Rajapaksa this morning,” a statement from the president’s office said. In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Wickremesinghe laid out his immediate plans for the economy, including presenting an interim budget within six weeks that will slash government expenditure “to the bone” and re-route funds into a two-year relief programme. Sri Lanka, an island nation of 22 million people, is reeling under its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948, with a severe shortage of foreign exchange severely curtailing imports, including essentials such as fuel and medicines. The turmoil has come from the confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic ravaging the country’s lucrative tourism industry and foreign workers’ remittances, ill-timed tax cuts by Rajapaksa draining government coffers and rising oil prices. On Tuesday, the World Bank said it is not planning to provide any new financing to Sri Lanka until an adequate economic policy framework has